


moon's awake now

by SafelyCapricious



Series: ain't no grave can hold my body down [19]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Family Secrets, Gen, Perfume, Self-Indulgent, could be shippy if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:53:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27114286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SafelyCapricious/pseuds/SafelyCapricious
Summary: Sakura’s parents argue about sending her to the Academy for an entire month — each by turns taking the opposing view until they’ve talked the subject to death.She desperately wants to go — she’ll have to learn chakra manipulation anyways, it makes more sense to do it at the Academy! Besides, she’s already dreaming of her genin team and having pack like her parents sometimes talk about.
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Hatake Kakashi
Series: ain't no grave can hold my body down [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950148
Comments: 31
Kudos: 215





	moon's awake now

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from She Wolf by Shakira b/c I couldn't help myself.
> 
> This is really self indulgent. I love a werewolf au. I have a surprising amount of headcanons considering how short this is. Was originally going to be shippy but then I never really got there and I have to post before bed b/c fictober so.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> For Monster, day 19.

Sakura’s parents argue about sending her to the Academy for an entire month — each by turns taking the opposing view until they’ve talked the subject to death.

She desperately wants to go — she’ll have to learn chakra manipulation anyways, it makes more sense to do it at the Academy! Besides, she’s already dreaming of her genin team and having _pack_ like her parents sometimes talk about.

But she knows she’ll have to obey their decision, so she treats each argument like a spectator sport and watches, gaze pinging back and forth between her parents as they argue their ever changing sides.

Eventually they decide to allow it — with conditions.

She doesn’t care. She’s so happy she thinks she’ll agree to _anything_.

***

Her grandmother liked to tell her of the past — back when _packs_ were large and protective and protected.

Before the Haruno’s were betrayed by their supposed allies, before ‘the time of the wolf’ had passed.

Sakura knows it won’t ever be like it is in the stories, but she thinks a little pack — bigger than just her and her family might be doable.

She hopes. It’s what she wants more than anything.

***

There might be some regret when, some years later, her mother shows her the perfume she has to wear every day so that when her puberty hits and her nature finally changes none of her more sensitive schoolmates notice a change in her scent. It burns her nose and she hates it — but she’d agreed to it so long ago to attend the academy and she’s so close to getting her genin team that she accepts it.

But still, she sees the faces almost all of her classmates make when she first shows up with smelling like a grandma — she knows it seems like she just put on too much by accident because she’s a silly girl and doesn’t know how to apply perfume and it makes her furious.

Inner growls and snarls and howls her rage — while keeping one hand firmly clapped over her nose the whole time.

“We can switch it to something better,” her mother assures her, petting her hair once she’s home from class and has scrubbed her skin raw to try to remove the overly strong scent of roses and lavender. “But we won’t know what scent will cover you best, darling, until your first shift and we don’t know when that will be. I’m sorry it’s so smelly.”

“Dad changed for the first time at ten,” eleven-year old Sakura pouts.

Her mother combs her fingers through Sakura’s hair and presses a kiss to her, even though she knows she still stinks. “He did,” she agrees, “but his mother didn’t until fifteen…and sometimes it can take even longer.”

“I don’t want to smell like this for four whole years!” Sakura cries and buries her head in her crossed arms.

She doesn’t see her mother roll her eyes. “You could always quit the academy, darling, but —“

“No! I’ll wear it, it’s fine!”

***

“I want to tell Ino!” Sakura says at dinner, saving a bite of food and missing the look her parents exchange over her head.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, darling,” her mother says, laying a hand on her shoulder. “I know it _seems_ like you’ll always be friends —“

“We _will_ always be best friends — and I want her in my pack, _please_?” Sakura’s puppy dog eyes are out in full force.

“You’re both very young,” her father says, and Sakura turns the force of her eyes onto him, “and anyone you tell has to be willing to chose you over everything else — anyone else.”

“I _know_ that Ino would always choose me,” Sakura says with the blind confidence of a seven year old.

“You haven’t even had your first transformation, sweetheart,” her mother says, rubbing her back, “why don’t we wait and see?”

“But you are not allowed to tell anyone without our direct permission, promise?” Her father holds out a pinky and she curls hers around it.

“I promise, papa.” But her mind is already whirling with a half baked plan. Because her parents had said that she could tell someone who would chose her over anyone else, and she’s _sure_ that Ino would — and she can _prove_ it and then they’ll let her tell her.

***

Ino choses Sasuke over Sakura and an accidental love rivalry is borne.

Her parents feel guilty for being relieved that Sakura is no longer associating so closely with the heir of one of the ninja clans — Ino was a lovely girl but the clan jutsu was always going to be a threat. So it’s one less thing to worry about, even as they watch their daughter cry and lose some of her faith in the world.

***

“Ninja don’t wear scents,” her sensei says to her, hand over his mask and she can see his eye watering even still.

She widens her eyes and stares up at him beseechingly, “but it reminds me of my grandma and I miss her and —“ tears start to well in her eyes and he waves his hand holding the orange pervert book through the air — probably to try to wave the scent of her perfume away from him, honestly. This had worked on her academy teachers when Kiba had complained to them, but she’s not sure it’ll work on her genin teacher, so she lets some tears start to fall and her lower lip trembles.

“Maa, maa, just…just less of it, okay, Sakura-chan?” his smile is fake, even though she can only see his eye, and Inner snarls at him even as Sakura nods enthusiastically like she’s going to listen to him.

She’s not.

But he doesn’t know that yet.

She promised her parents though, to always wear it until she’s changed and has had the chance to get a perfume that will mask her scent instead of overwhelm it, and she’s not going to let them down, even if her genin team will be her pack _eventually_ , they’re not there yet.

(Somedays she thinks they’ll never be there, but it makes her sad so she tries not to think about it too much.)

***

Her father changed for the first time shortly after having his first kiss. Her grandfather never tells her what prompted his, but she still thinks it can’t be as bad as hers.

Sakura changes for the first time after being abandoned on a bench by a teammate who she wanted desperately to be pack.

She spends the night crying to the moon and wakes up tear sick and heart sore.

Her father presents her with a perfume that doesn’t smell like grandmother perfume the following morning — cloves and honey and cinnamon and light enough that it doesn’t burn her to smell it — and she can’t even be excited about it because she has friends in the hospital and the pack she wanted is broken and scattered.

Sakura wonders if at least Kakashi-sensei won’t mind being around her as much, with the new scent — but then she never gets to find out.

Naruto at least tells her he’s going away to train, her teacher says nothing and just leaves her to herself and — Inner isn’t there anymore to snarl at him, but she wants to do it nonetheless.

***

“Mother, father,” Sakura clasps her hands in front of her and takes a deep breath. It’s been seven years since she last asked, and she’s taking it more seriously this time. “I would like to tell Tsunade.”

This time she sees and recognizes the look they exchange, and her shoulders are already slumped by the time her mother opens her mouth.

“Sweetheart,” pity drips from the word and Sakura has to fight raising a lip in a snarl — she has more control than that.

“She can’t put you first, above the village,” her father says softly, “she’s Hokage.”

Sakura makes a face, because she thinks her mentor _would_ put her above most of the village, but maybe that’s naive too. “But if she knows then she won’t send me away on any extended missions,” she tries next, adding a wheedling, “and you know I don’t have the control to _not_ change three months in a row.”

“If you get assigned such a mission we can discuss it then,” her mother says firmly.

“But sometimes it’s unexpected!” Sakura realizes her mistake as soon as she says it.

Her mother’s arched eyebrow is not impressed. “Then her knowing won’t stop it from happening.”

“And,” her father ads, clapping a hand to her shoulder, “if you find that’s the case than you’d best hope you trust your partner or team. And if you can’t trust them, you kill them quickly.”

Sakura lets out a breath and nods her agreement. “Alright.”

***

She smells Naruto before she sees him — or before he hears him, which is somehow more impressive since he’s still stupid loud. His base scent — fire and fox — is now blended with toad and dirt and someone who smells like sulfur and paper who she doesn’t know.

She lets a grin pull at her lips before she pulls him in for a hug, rubbing her fingers over the back of his neck until he smells a little more like her and less like people she doesn’t know.

He gushes at her and she rolls her eyes and — he’s annoying, but she guesses he is pack. Unfortunate.

She sniffs and allows him to buy her lunch.

Someone is watching them, but she can’t place where they are — but it keeps the hair on the back of her neck up the entire meal. Konoha _should_ be safe, but that doesn’t mean it is.

***

Kakashi appears before she’s realized he’s going to be there — and it’s only all the control that her parents taught her that keeps her from throwing herself at him as soon as she can smell him.

It’s probably good, she thinks still resentful, that he vanished before she’d transformed for the first time, because her control wasn’t nearly as good then and he smells like _home_ somehow _._

His base scent is lightning, dogs, metal and paper, and maybe it’s the dogs that makes it just seem right, or the fact that he uses the same kunai oil as her dad, but she wants to burrow into his side and never leave.

But he still leans away from her — which is _rude_ because she doesn’t smell like a grandma anymore — and she quashes the urge to touch him.

He’s still an asshole, and she doesn’t want anything to do with him and she refuses to think he might be pack.

***

It looks like they’ll be finished before two full months, even though the original assignment had only been for three weeks — and Sakura breathes a sigh of relief. But then they get another set of instructions, and they pass two months and start to approach three and as time drags on her anxiety grows and grows as she watches the moon get closer and closer to full.

“Can I trust you,” she asks, finally, the day of the full moon when she can feel the pull on her blood and the ache of her teeth, “to have my best interest at heart, even above the village?”

Kakashi lowers Icha-Icha and stares at her searchingly in silence.

She averts her gaze.

She’s not willing to kill him — she’s not sure she could without going feral anyways, except maybe as a surprise attack and even the thought makes her feel ill. But she can probably get away from him — go missing nin — though it would break her heart to do it. But better to do that then hurt him, or set herself up to be broken like werewolves usually are.

“Yes,” he says, finally, and she looks up at him sharply. He meets her gaze with a serious eye, and a nod, and she lets out all of her breath and near collapses on the floor.

She believes him.

***

“I won’t hurt you,” she says, as the sun sinks behind the trees.

He doesn’t bother to look up from his book — and she wonders if she should’ve actually told him what’s going to happen. But, she’s not sure how to explain it and it sounds _insane_ if you don’t know the history and —

“I won’t hurt you,” she repeats to herself this time.

“I know, Sakura,” he says, smoothly putting his novel away and fixing her with his eye. “Do you want to explain yourself yet?”

She shrugs, and then moonrise happens and even though she can’t see it she can _feel_ it and her spine arches without her permission. She’s used to the wet snap crackle pop that marks every full moon — and the occasional off schedule transformation when she needs her extra senses — but Kakashi clearly isn’t, and he reaches out to her like he can stop her from breaking apart.

If she had a voice she’d tell him not to bother, that it doesn’t hurt more than using chakra, that every tear and rip is healing before the pain can cement in her.

“…I…was not expecting that,” he says, after a long pause, once she’s all wolf and has shaken the lightning from her bones.

He’s not reacting like she’s a monster — like there’s something wrong with her. He’s staring at her like always, with a smile and a happy little eye crease and — and it’s what she’s been looking for.

Her wolfish grin doesn’t send him running and when she walks over and flops on him — now probably weighing more than he does, he just lets out a grunt and allows it, and she still wants to tell the rest of the team.

But for now, this will do. He’s pack.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, [writing tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/capriciouswrites) if you wanna bother me about fic. 
> 
> Lemme know what you think and if you wanna see more in this universe. 
> 
> 😘
> 
> Shoutout to the Sakura discord peeps who are just the best.


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